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OpenWindow.document.write(" Save America -- Enforce the Bill of Rights
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OpenWindow.document.write("By L. Neil Smith
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OpenWindow.document.write("lneil@lneilsmith.org
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\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution -- commonly\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("known as the Bill of Rights -- are the highest law of the land.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Over the 200 years it's been in force, certain people -- usually\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("politicians and bureaucrats who wanted more power and found the\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Bill of Rights an inconvenient obstacle (exactly as it was\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("intended to be) -- have argued over its proper interpretation.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("During the Lincoln, Wilson, and second Roosevelt\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Administrations, the Bill of Rights was openly violated and\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("even set aside, using an ongoing war as a handy excuse. As a\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("result, the size and power of government grew at the expense of\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("individual liberties which, for the most part, were never given\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("back even when the war was over. Similar violations have been\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("committed in the name of the War on Drugs.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("However no legal provision exists for the suspension of the Bill\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("of Rights, in time of war or any other emergency. Any government\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("employee, elected or appointed, from policeman to President, who\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("violates it, no matter what justification he offers, is a\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("criminal. \n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("This claim may appear strange or trivial, until we count the\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("cost of such violations, and realize that the events of \n"); OpenWindow.document.write("September 11, 2001 could never have happened if the rule of law\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("-- the highest law of the land -- had been fully enforced as the\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("nation's Founders intended.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("If Constitutional limits on the power of government -- on the\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("President and Congress -- had been properly enforced, the kind\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("of interference typical of American foreign policy that has made\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("people overseas hate us and want to kill us would have been\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("impossible.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("And if the Second Amendment had been enforced, the September 11\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("killers would have faced aircraft containing armed passengers\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("and would probably never have thought of trying to hijack those\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("planes.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("So far, the government's response to its own terrible failures\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("of September 11 has been to imitate Lincoln, Wilson, and\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Roosevelt, and do its best to limit the freedom of Americans\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("even further, passing laws and creating regulations that violate\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("nearly every one of the first ten amendments and transform\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("America into a police state.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("And in a transparent and pathetic effort to look better in its\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("blundering, the government cites polls taken of a populace who\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("have been indoctrinated all their lives by establishment mass\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("media and the public schools -- and haven't the vaguest clue\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("what their rights are, or what's been done to them in war after\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("war.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("The fact is, crime of any kind, whether it kills six people or\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("six thousand, represents a diffuse threat, and can only be\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("countered with a diffuse defense. Individuals must be free to\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("act -- as individuals -- against it. Only the most stringent,\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("energetic, and enthusiastic Bill of Rights enforcement can\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("guarantee that freedom to act.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Those Founding Founders who wrote the Bill of Rights made sure\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("it was written clearly, in plain language. They meant it to be\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("understood by everybody, not just lawyers and judges -- working\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("for politicians and bureaucrats -- attempting to \"explain\" it\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("all away.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("There is only one correct way to interpret the Bill of Rights.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Put yourself in the Founding Fathers' place: if you had just\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("finished a long, bloody shooting war against the biggest, most\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("violently ruthless empire on the planet -- and surprised\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("yourself and everybody else by winning it -- and the last thing\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("you wanted was to find yourself, your children, or their\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("children under the heel of tyranny again, exactly what would you\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("have intended the Bill of Rights to mean?\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Is it possible you would have given government -- which the\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Founders saw as the natural enemy of human freedom, dignity, and\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("hope -- the power to suspend the Bill of Rights? Or would you\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("have wanted those vital, life-giving rights protected by a new\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("kind of government whose only excuse for existing was to enforce\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("them?\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("The Bill of Rights is what America is all about. Without it,\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("we'd be just like any other country with too much government.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("We'd be like China, or Russia, or Germany without the Bill of\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Rights. As somebody said, we'd be the world's biggest banana\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("republic.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Every problem America ever had could have been solved by\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("enforcing the Bill of Rights. Every problem America has now\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("could be solved by enforcing the Bill of Rights. Every problem\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("America will ever have will be solved by enforcing the Bill of\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Rights.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("Or else it won't be America any more.\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("For further information, contact\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("lneil@lneilsmith.org\n"); OpenWindow.document.write("
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